The Formation of Civic Legal Consciousness and Legal Culture of

Youth as a Factor in Ensuring the Stable Development of the Region

Irina V. Tseveleva

Faculty of Social and Humanitarian Studies, Komsomolsk-na-Amure State University, Lenin’s Street 27, Komsomolsk-on-

Amur, Russian Federation

Keywords: Civic Consciousness, Legal Culture, Anti-Corruption Legislation, Patriotic Education of Young People,

Lawful Behavior.

Abstract: The article analyzes the problems of the formation of civic legal consciousness and legal culture of youth as

a factor in ensuring the stable development of the region. The process of forming legal consciousness involves

the transformation of legal knowledge into a system of personal legal beliefs, which will be further

implemented in the legal behavior of an individual. The problem of legal consciousness formation of the

younger generation was dealt with by such authors as I.F. Gabidullin, K.K. Kolin, Yu.V. Kuznetsov, I.A.

Petrulevich, O. Yu. Mikhailova and others. The formation of legal consciousness and legal culture of modern

youth should become one of the main objectives of the national security strategy implementation of the

Russian Federation. In order to implement the objective, it is necessary not only to improve the legislative

framework, but also to make efforts to activate all social institutions involved in the process of legal

socialization of the individual. The study of the features of the components of the legal consciousness of

modern student youth shows that the level of assimilation of legal knowledge among young people is quite

high, they are well guided in elementary legal realities, however, in situations of legal choice, the odds are

not always in lawful behavior favor. It is proposed to intensify work on the restoration of the system of moral,

labor education in educational institutions of all levels. In addition, in our opinion, it is necessary to create

conditions for attracting socially active youth in the process of transferring knowledge and experience to the

younger generation. Based on the studies’ results, anti-corruption legislation improving proposals were made.

1 INTRODUCTION

The National Security Strategy of the Russian

Federation, approved by Decree of the President of

the Russian Federation No. 683 on December 31,

2015, defines the main threats to the security of the

state and strategic national priorities, including "... the

development of democratic institutions, improvement

of interaction mechanisms between the state and civil

society." Thus, in the strategy it is possible to trace

the relationship between the security of the state and

the development of civil society quite clearly. The

development of civil society cannot be separated from

the development and socialization of a particular

citizen. Therefore, it is no coincidence that the

following is indicated among the necessary

conditions for the implementation of the national

security strategy: "…it is necessary to increase the

https://orcid.org/ 0000-0001-6665-1437

role of schools in educating young people as

responsible citizens of Russia on the basis of

traditional Russian spiritual, moral and cultural and

historical values, as well as in the prevention of

extremism and radical ideology." (ConsultantPlus,

2015).

The process of a modern young person legal

socialization is an integral part of an individual

socialization process and according to the objective

laws of individual development, is carried out as a

purposeful, that is, under the influence of social

institutions, family, school, educational organization

and spontaneously, through the participation of a

young person in various legal situations (Dai, 2018).

The purpose and at the same time the result of

legal socialization is the legal consciousness and legal

culture of the individual, which, in turn, are

determined by the degree of lawful behavior and legal

786

Tseveleva, I.

The Formation of Civic Legal Consciousness and Legal Culture of Youth as a Factor in Ensuring the Stable Development of the Region.

DOI: 10.5220/0010597607860791

In Proceedings of the International Scientiﬁc and Practical Conference on Sustainable Development of Regional Infrastructure (ISSDRI 2021), pages 786-791

ISBN: 978-989-758-519-7

activity of the citizen. The process of the legal

consciousness formation presupposes the

transformation of legal knowledge into a system of

personal legal convictions, which will be further

implemented in the legal behavior of an individual.

(Kuznetsov and Salmina, 2010).

2 METHODS

Analyzing the process of legal consciousness and

legal culture formation, we can talk about the

allocation of these categories in relation to an

individual, a group and society as a whole. The

formation of a legal culture is carried out through two

processes, namely, legal education and legal training.

The developed legal culture of the individual

determines the social and legal activity of the

individual and the degree of legitimacy of his

behavior. Individual legal consciousness and legal

culture in general form legal consciousness and legal

culture of society and, accordingly, contribute to the

development of all institutions of civil society, which

in turn contributes to maintaining the national

security of the state.

Legal consciousness is one of the forms of social

consciousness. Various authors studying the problem

of legal consciousness represent the structure of legal

consciousness in different ways, but the majority

single out the following structural elements: legal

knowledge, legal values, attitudes and relationships.

With regard to the problem of ensuring national

security and the development of civil society in

modern Russia, it is necessary to consider not only

legal consciousness as a whole, but also civil legal

consciousness. According to I.F. Gabidullina, civic

legal consciousness reflects not only the connection

between personality and law, but namely the

assessment of the relationship between a particular

citizen and the state, from the point of view of legal

categories. The author includes such principles as the

mutual responsibility of the citizen and the state,

patriotism in the content of civic legal consciousness.

Thus, in the light of the development of the state

security system, it is necessary to form purposefully

the elements of modern youth civic legal

consciousness (Gabidullin, 2014).

3 RESULTS

At present, in terms of the implementation of targeted

measures for the legal socialization of youth,

attention to the formation of a value attitude among

the younger generation towards state power, law,

respect for individual freedoms and the

implementation of each citizen's duties should be

paid. Now, the transformation of the experience of

using various children and youth organizations in the

process of civil-legal socialization of the younger

generation has begun. The youth army, the all-

Russian children's and youth military-patriotic social

movement, created in 2016, have been particularly

active in using this experience. However, in this case,

the priority is patriotic, not legal education.

At the same time, in the context of young people

civic legal consciousness formation as a factor in

ensuring national security, the patriotic component of

this type of activity cannot be excluded, because an

active citizen is, first of all, a patriot of the state. In

2015, the State Program "Patriotic education of

citizens of the Russian Federation for 2016 - 2020"

was approved by the Resolution of the Government

of the Russian Federation of December 30, 2015 N

1493. Among the purposes and objectives of the

program, special attention is paid to the formation of

increased civic responsibility in the younger

generation, an active life position, and a respectful

attitude to social values and history (GARANT.RU,

2015).

The realization and implementation of the

program is carried out in all constituent entities of the

Russian Federation; annual monitoring of the

activities of constituent entities of the Russian

Federation in civil-patriotic and spiritual-moral

education of children and youth is provided. As the

experience of foreign countries has shown, national

identity and national unity are the result of patriotic

education.

As the researchers note, modern youth have a

relatively low level of civic identity, belonging to the

society of a particular state. This phenomenon is

explained by the fact that in older generations, civic

identity was formed on the basis of life experience,

ideological upbringing. Modern youth have no

experience, and there has been no ideological

upbringing in general.

The national unity of the country, as the basis of

national security, is formed on the basis of the civic

identity of each member of society, therefore, the low

level of civic identity of young people can be

considered as a threat of deformation of legal

consciousness and degradation of Russian civil

society (Vologdina et al., 2020).

The tendencies of racism, terrorism and

extremism ideas propaganda among the youth, the

spread of the criminal subculture, which have spread

The Formation of Civic Legal Consciousness and Legal Culture of Youth as a Factor in Ensuring the Stable Development of the Region

787

in recent years, give rise to concerns. The lack of

purposeful legal education of adolescents leads to the

fact that legal knowledge and legal values are de-

formed, which inevitably leads to deformation of

legal consciousness and, as a result, as a consequence,

criminal, illegal behavior.

The de-ideologization of society can also be

considered as a negatively influencing factor, the

essence of this process is to replace the value

orientations of young people. The domination of

material values over spiritual values in the legal

consciousness of young people, a decrease in the level

of education, a deformation of legal culture can be

considered as the result of this process. (Starinov and

Tseveleva, 2017).

If we analyze the current situation with the

dissemination of information through communication

channels and television, we can state the fact of a

negative impact on the forming process of children

and adolescents legal consciousness. Despite a

number of legal protection measures taken, in reality,

there is no barrier between a child and a computer

(TV) access to inadmissible information. Analyzing

the situation with the spread of negative information

through modern communication channels, Professor

K.K. Kolin proposes to pass the Law on Information

and Psychological Safety of Children, Adolescents

and Youth and the Law on Protection of Public

Morality (Kolin, 2011).

The class structure of modern Russian society can

also be considered as a factor that has a negative

impact on the younger generation. Legal situations,

when some legal entities have legally unconditional

advantages over others, are perceived quite acutely,

especially by young people, which further leads to

deformations of various components of right-

consciousness and can result in delinquent and

deviant behavior.

All of the above negative factors of influence on

the legal consciousness formation process lead to its

deformations. The problem of legal consciousness

deformation is interdisciplinary in nature and is

considered by psychologists, sociologists and

criminologists. In essence, the deformation of legal

consciousness is a distortion in the consciousness of

both a particular individual and society of legal

knowledge and attitudes.

At the same time, all the elements of the legal

consciousness structure are subject to deformation:

knowledge, attitudes, principles, emotional-sensory

and evaluative components.

Researchers of legal consciousness deformations

distinguish such forms as legal infantilism and legal

nihilism. Legal infantilism is the most widespread

form of legal consciousness deformation, expressed

in a low level of legal knowledge, unformed legal

attitudes and legal principles of the individual.

Legal nihilism is a conscious rejection of the law

requirements, a lack of faith in law and a desire to

carry out one's life guided by one's own needs and

desires, without precluding criminal behavior. The

phenomenon of legal nihilism is quite common

among modern youth. According to such authors as

Petrulevich I.A., Mikhailova O.Yu., Romanko O.A.,

Tselikovsky S.B. legal nihilism should be

differentiated from criminal, delinquent behavior,

which should be considered as independent forms of

legal consciousness deformation. The above authors

note such a phenomenon of modern legal knowledge

as inversion, which is understood as a change in the

regulatory functions of legal consciousness in various

legal situations, as well as in assessing the legal

capabilities of various kinds of offence subjects.

When making decisions in any legally significant

situation, the majority of people who have an

inversion of legal consciousness evaluate their

opponent and, in accordance with this, choose the

method of their legal behavior, guided not by the

norms of law, but by social status and social (power)

capabilities and the powers of the subject (Petrulevich

et al., 2013).

In this case, it is appropriate to define the concept

of anti-corruption legal consciousness. According to

M.V. Shedii it has such signs as an internal conviction

in the need to counteract corruption actions, a socially

active position in the implementation and formation

of the state's anti-corruption policy, the presence of

specific anti-corruption knowledge and legal

assessments of people's behavior. The author

considers the main function of anti-corruption legal

consciousness to assess the behavior of various

subjects of law in situations related to corruption, as

well as in the use of legal methods for resolving

problems arising in the economic, administrative and

other spheres of society. The formation of anti-

corruption consciousness among the majority of legal

entities will ultimately lead to a solution to the

problem of corruption in society (Shedi, 2014).

In order to study some of the peculiarities of the

legal consciousness of modern youth, a survey was

conducted among the student youth aged 17 to 20

years. Its results allow us to state the presence of

certain deformations in the perceptions of the younger

generation, which in general can be regarded as an

alarming fact that requires the intervention of social

institutions.

To the question: "Are you a patriot of your

country?" – 98 % of respondents answered positively.

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At the same time, the next question raised doubts

about such patriotism, namely, 28 % of the same

respondents answered that they would like to leave

the country for a permanent place of residence. This

fact testifies to the substitution of the concept of

patriotism in the minds of the younger generation and

the need to implement measures of patriotic education

not only with children and adolescents, but also with

student youth.

It is interesting that 100 % of the male

respondents recognize the obligation to do military

service in the Russian Army as just, while only 56 %

intend to do it. When asked if you had the opportunity

to evade service in the Army and not bear legal

responsibility, 63 % of the respondents would have

used this opportunity.

The implementation of criminal and illegal

behavior is unacceptable for the majority of

respondents, however, when answering the question

whether they had any minor offenses in the past, 29 %

answered positively. At the same time, such offenses

as jaywalking, untimely payment of taxes and fines,

in the opinion of the majority (68 %), are permissible

in everyday life and cannot be considered illegal. It

also calls into questions that 28 % of respondents are

ready to commit an illegal act if it is not associated

with violence and subsequently will not be criminally

punishable. At the same time, 98 % have a negative

attitude to corrupt behavior, consider it to be one of

the reasons for the economic crisis in the state and

insist on tougher criminal liability for corrupt

officials.

The attitude of young people to the problem of

drugs is quite interesting, the majority, 79 % have a

negative attitude to the problem of drugs spread

among young people, do not use them themselves and

condemn the use. However, to the question “Will you

report to the law enforcement agencies about persons

you know who sell drugs or cases of sale?”, Only

38 % answered positively.

An analysis of the respondents' answers to the

questions about criminal behavior indicates the

existence of double standards. It is arguable that the

level of legal knowledge assimilation among young

people is quite high, they are not bad at orienting

themselves in elementary legal realities, however, in

situations of legal choice, the preponderance does not

always add up to lawful behavior.

M.I. Enikeev distinguishes three levels of lawful

behavior:

 law-abiding - the highest level, when the needs,

motives of the individual, as well as the goals

and means of achieving them coincide with the

requirements of the rule of law;

 law-executive behavior is characterized by the

following: goals and means of achieving them

coincide with the requirements of the law, at

the same time this happens not because this is

an internal conviction of the individual, but

because a person does not want to stand out

from the general mass and acts under the

pressure of the group, society;

 law-enforcement behavior differs from

previous levels in that a person acts in

accordance with legal norms because of fear of

punishment, true needs, motives, interests do

not coincide with the requirements of the law

(Enikeev, 2010).

Students were asked to attribute themselves to a

certain level of lawful behavior, as well as to

characterize the level of behavior characteristic of the

peers. The obtained results showed that 72 % of the

respondents attributed themselves to the executive

level, 6% consider themselves law-abiding, and 14 %

are law executing. At the same time, when

characterizing the behavior of their peers, 66 %

named the lowest level - law-enforcement behavior.

These results allow us to assert that disagreeing

assessments of oneself and one's generation allow a

low level of self-criticism. At the same time, one

cannot help but think that the observance of laws by

the majority of young people is based on a desire to

avoid responsibility, and does not coincide with

personal life principles and priorities.

Civic legal consciousness formation of modern

Russian youth is possible only on condition that every

young person knows and observes the rights and

freedoms of man and citizen, which are enshrined in

the Constitution of the Russian Federation, in real

life. Only after reaching a balance of rights and

interests of the individual, society and the state, we

can talk about the formation of civic legal

consciousness.

4 DISCUSSION

To summarize the above, it can be argued that the

formation of legal consciousness and legal culture of

modern youth should become one of the main

objectives of the Russian Federation national security

strategy implementation. In order to implement this

objective, it is necessary not only to improve the

legislative framework, but also to make efforts to

activate all social institutions involved in the process

of legal socialization of the individual. It is proposed

to intensify work to restore the system of moral, labor

education in educational institutions of all levels. In

The Formation of Civic Legal Consciousness and Legal Culture of Youth as a Factor in Ensuring the Stable Development of the Region

789

addition, in our opinion, it is necessary to create

conditions for attracting socially active youth in the

process of transferring knowledge and experience to

the younger generation. Another necessary measure

to prevent deformations of the legal consciousness

and legal culture of young people is to work on

limiting negative informational influences on the

psyche of children and adolescents, in particular,

preventing the effects of the criminal sub-culture. All

of the above measures will contribute to the civic

legal consciousness formation and a socially active

civic position of a young person, which will

ultimately lead to the formation of national identity

and cohesion, which in turn will help reduce negative

risks to the national security of the state.

5 CONCLUSIONS

The formation of the civic legal consciousness of

young people presupposes the further improvement

of anti-corruption legislation associated with the

complex application of sanctions in various branches

of law - from criminal to administrative-tort legal

relations. (Xiaoli, 2014)

The urgency of this problem, which poses a threat

to the national security of Russia, is indicated in the

Decree of the President of the Russian Federation of

June 29, 2018 No. 378 "On the National Anti-

Corruption Plan for 2018-2020", on the basis of

which the National Anti-Corruption Plan for 2018-

2020 (Garant.Ru, 2018).

We are confident that the application of the norms

of administrative tort law in relation to persons who

have committed an offense with corruption signs,

with compulsory dismissal from the state or civil

service, will allow implementing preventive

measures that create a barrier to corruption crime.

We propose to include the norms of the Code of

Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation in

the list:

1) bribery of voters, referendum participants, or

the implementation of charitable activities during the

election campaign, referendum campaign in violation

of the legislation on elections and referendums

(Article 5.16 of the Administrative Code of the

Russian Federation);

2) failure to submit or not publish a report,

information on the crime and spending of funds

allocated for electoral purposes, referendum or other

elective office (Article 5.17 of the Code of

Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation);

3) illegal financing of the election and referendum

campaign, prohibited by law provision of material

support related to the conduct of elections,

referendum, performance of work, provision of

services, goods for free of charge or at unreasonably

low (overestimated) prices (Article 5.20 of the

Administrative Code of the Russian Federation);

4) untimely transfer of funds to election

campaigns, referendum commissions, candidates,

electoral associations, initiative groups for holding a

referendum, and other groups of referendum

participants (Article 5.21 of the Administrative Code

of the Russian Federation);

5) inappropriate use of budgetary funds and off-

budget funds of the state (Article 15.14 of the

Administrative Code of the Russian Federation);

6) failure to meet the time limit for submitting a

tax return (calculation of insurance premiums)

(Article 15.5 of the Administrative Code of the

Russian Federation);

7) illegal recruitment to work or to the

performance of work or the provision of services of a

state or municipal employee, or a former state or

municipal employee (Article 19.29 of the Code of

Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation)

8) illegal remuneration on behalf of a legal entity

(Article 19.28 of the Administrative Code of the

Russian Federation) (Consultant Plus, 2020).

In order to further counteract the influence of the

criminal sub-culture among minors, we propose to

include article 20.3.1 in the Code of Administrative

Offenses of the Russian Federation, calling it

“Propagation of the criminal subculture ideology and

criminal lifestyle among minors”.

The formation of the criminal subculture ideology

negative perception among minors would be:

1) one of the mechanisms for the implementation

of Federal Law No. 436-FZ of December 29, 2010

"On the protection of children from information that

is harmful to their health and development." In

particular, paragraph 5 of Article 5 takes into account

the types of information harmful to the health and (or)

development of children, on the basis of justifying

illegal behavior (GSPI, 2019);

2) the form of the Constitutional principles of

child protection legal consolidation, proposed for

national discussion by the President of the Russian

Federation, Art. 67 “Children are the most important

priority of Russian state policy. The state creates

conditions conducive to the all-round spiritual, moral,

intellectual and physical development of children,

fostering patriotism, citizenship and respect for elders

in them” (State Duma, 2020);

3) legal consolidation of instructions of the

President of the Russian Federation in subsequent

regulatory legal acts, expressed in the Address to the

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790

Federal Assembly on January 15, 2020 “The fate of

Russia, its historical perspective depends on how

many of us there will be, depends on how many

children will be born in Russian families, what they

will grow up to be, what they will become, what they

will do for the development of the country and what

values will support them in life ” (President of Russia,

2020).

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